Captain Cuellar’s Adventures in Connaught and Ulster, A.D. 1588

This is an extraordinarily bleak account of the survival of Francisco De Cúellar, captain of the San Pedro, shipwrecked off the Sligo coast along with other vessels of the Spanish Armada. Washed up on Streedagh, injured and virtually naked, he faced a series of horrors ashore. Appalled by the sight of the bodies of twelve of his compatriots hanging from the ceiling of a ruined monastery and hounded by English troops and some locals, he bundled his way from horror to horror, in constant fear of capture and certain death in the English garrisoned North Sligo/Leitrim area. He eventually found refuge with chieftains of the clans O’Rourke and McClancy, before making his way northward to and escaping to Scotland.